


Possibilities in the Space Between

by Starlithorizon



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Genderswap, Some Humor, spoilers up to episode 37
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:57:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlithorizon/pseuds/Starlithorizon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carla and Cecily do their best to navigate survival and love in Night Vale, just like anyone else, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Possibilities in the Space Between

**Author's Note:**

> Just casually trying my hand at genderswapping two of my favorite characters. I do this a lot, actually. Don't look at me. Anyway, I'd be more likely to consider this a long-ish character study than anything. The only difference is that they're Cecily and Carla rather than Cecil and Carlos.

Cecily smiled up at the sky, tilting her head back just a little to let the light of trillions of stars and one supposed moon play across the planes and angles of her face. Beside her, Carla was a long line of humanity and heat, and she felt more alive than she had in a tremendously long time. It was a nice feeling, she thought, full of fire and fear and joy resonating like a bell. Carla was here beside her, breathing and being propelled by a pulsing heart, and that was _perfect_.

Her blood stained the earth below the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Fun Complex, but that hardly mattered when the rest of it was coursing through her veins and screaming _She's alive!_ Her heart, echoing through Cecily's head where it rested on her shoulder, beat with that same sentiment.

She smiled in the frantic, neon darkness.

Slowly, gently, as though she was trying to make amends with the idea or keep Cecily where she was, Carla leaned her head against Cecily's, smiling into the broadcaster's hair. There was so much gentle fondness in that small action, and Cecily's heart fluttered, trapped in the bone cage of her ribs.

It wasn't love, that thing tucked into the narrow space between them, but it felt like so much incandescent potential.

After a long, quiet while, she felt Carla press a kiss to the top of her head. Cecily felt the possibilities humming between them, and she smiled.

* * *

It was strange, really, to sit there in the buzzing darkness of her living room and know that she had kissed Carla. _No_ , that wasn't right. Carla had kissed _her_. Just once, yes, and just gently, but it had _happened_. Carla, beautiful and clever Carla, had kissed _her_. There was some kind of courage to that, different from the haphazard bravado which had sent her underground.

Cecily wiped her palms, sheened with sweat, against the rough fur of her pants. It wasn't her favorite look, what with the pants all being one color and the tunic lacking any sort of embellishment, and _oh_ , hadn't Carla looked nice? She was all red dress and heels under her laid-back, weekend lab coat, the one covered in a hibiscus print.

She'd grinned at Cecily's when the broadcaster had pulled up in front of the large stuccoed house she shared with the other scientists. It was a shining curve with red lipstick and teeth like a military cemetery, and it was all for her.

Yes, despite nearly being absorbed by malevolent shadow energy, Cecily couldn't be happier. She sighed like some besotted fairy tale princess and she was utterly and entirely happy. It had been sweet, and it had been brief, and it had been perfect, just as expected. It was almost enough to bowl the broadcaster over, and she couldn't find it in herself to find that undignified. And why would she, when it was Carla she was swooning over?

The night passed slowly, and the buzzing continued until it simply did not. Shortly after this change in events and the atmosphere, her phone chirped and sang and announced a phone call from Carla, lovely Carla.

" _Hello_?" Cecily crooned into the phone. She heard Carla chuckle on the other end of the line.

"Hi, Cecily," the scientist said, and Cecily could hear the warm smile tipped across her voice like honey. There was such sweetness, such open fondness that for a moment, it took Cecily's breath away. All of that, and it was for her. "I'm glad you got home safe."

"Of course I did," Cecily said, and perhaps her grin was a little goofy, and perhaps she didn't care. She noticed the way Carla's breath dragged a little more harshly than usual, and the grin turned into a small frown. Concern painted itself in large letters across Cecily's face.

"What happened?" she asked, all seriousness now. "You sound out of breath."

"I just got done dealing with the buzzing shadow people," Carla told her. "It took me a little while to figure out how to actually _do_ that, but it was simple in the end. I just..."

And here, the scientist rambled about protons or neutrons or croutons, and though Cecily was totally into science these days, she had to admit that she was a bit tired and it all went a bit over her head. Still, Carla was happy to swirl through her story, explaining things in ways that really didn't make it any easier to understand, and Cecily could just hear the light that was surely radiating from her. Metaphorically, of course, as they'd avoided the wheat-free pasta primavera, which did have the minor side effect of making one glow. Carla was always luminescent when she talked about science, incandescent with her absolute love for it.

And that was wonderful, wasn't it? That Carla loved science the way Cecily loved Night Vale. It was an all-consuming thing, and if it meant that they had to wait a month before finding the time to go on a proper date, well, that happened, and it was okay. There was more to Cecily than Carla, just as there was more to Carla than her perfect, perfect hair.

"So our date went pretty well, don't you think?" Cecily asked once Carla was done talking about saving the town. And how lovely, that she was so able and so willing! Carla was the patron saint of Night Vale, the valiant protector and scientist extraordinaire. Perhaps she was falling in love with the town, finding herself as enamored of the twisted glory as Cecily. Maybe, just maybe, she was finding a home in Night Vale.

Carla laughed softly, kindly on the other end.

"Definitely," she said. There was a soft hush for a moment, a brief pause as she tried to decide which words to use next. "I hope we can do it again sometime. Sometime soon."

Cecily felt fit to burst for a moment, butterflies or moths or spiders filling up her belly and chest.

" _Neat_!"

A hot flush spread across Cecily's face, borne on the hideously embarrassing back of that stupid word, falling out over and over again like rocks from her usually sure mouth. What was she _doing_? She was paid to speak into microphones, but when that microphone was attached to her cell and Carla was the sole listener, she was reduced to such horrors as neat. _Ugh_.

Carla laughed again, all of that affection, honeyed and sunlit and hers. Cecily continued to blush.

"I'm thinking pizza and a movie," she said, steering the conversation somewhere precarious and wonderful. "You?"

* * *

Carla wasn't perfect. She chewed a bit too loudly for Cecily's taste, she had a penchant for dropping everything for science, and she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. She got blemishes in her mid-thirties and she dog-eared pages in books. She was this odd tangle of a human being, and that alone made her precious beyond all belief.

For all her imperfections, there was Cecily sitting next to her on the bed in autumn sunlight, pointing out a million more pieces of glory. Her hair curled in the neatest, softest ringlets. Her nose, small and delicate, was dusted with a smattering of freckles that told the history of the sun's love for her. She talked about science with an incandescent glow, and she wove stories about their possible future with the same light. She curled into Cecily's touch like a cat and dusted little starlight kisses across Cecily's cheekbones in hushed darkness.

Carla, perfectly imperfect and the most wonderful thing Cecily had ever known, was reliable and caring, silly and absurd, and sometimes she chewed a little too loudly and sometimes she just caught Cecily's hand in hers and looked like it was a shooting star or something so much sweeter than flesh and fragile bones. She wrote illegal little love-notes, sticking them all around Cecily's apartment, and little scribbles of "You're cute when you're sleepy" were so much important than the Sheriff's Secret Police tutting their disapproval. They never did anything about it, though, content to watch their gossamer courtship and diamond affection.

It was love, what they had found, a riot of greens and soft pink blooms in this arid desert, and it was the most important thing either of them had ever known.

So sometimes they lay on the soft lavender sheets of Cecily's bed or the worn sage sheets of Carla's bed, and they whispered stories of a possible future like secrets. It was a soft forever spun between them, cotton candy-pink and singing like crickets beneath the windows.

* * *

Carla never made her feel guilty for taking the subway. She never brought it up in fights, though she clearly held it as close to her chest as Cecily did the underground city. Though Cecily's scars were much less literal, they were just as real, and sometimes, on those nights when Cecily woke with shuddering gasps and a feeling of tearing through her skin, Carla just shuffled closer and rested a hand across her arm. That was it, just a tiny point of contact, and it was perfect. Just a few inches of warm, worn skin on hers, and she knew that she was here, she was home, and Carla was just beside her.

She fell back asleep easily on those nights.

* * *

Mornings, molten and golden and fine, even through the horrors they were made to live through, were sacred. They were slow and they were lovely, and they smelled like toast and coffee and sometimes tofu chorizo. With the early morning light filtering through gauzy curtains and falling across the kitchen floor and their bare feet, there was nothing quite as special as the morning. Cecily didn't go into the station till noon at the earliest, and Carla didn't go to the lab until ten. Their nights were much less sacred, devoted to moonlight and complaining about their days and getting dinner. Nothing quite had the preciousness of mornings.

On this morning in particular, Cecily felt something harsh grating against the underside of her skin, and it was like sacrilege. Carla didn't press the quiet panic pooling in Cecily's collarbone, instead plating their breakfast and dropping a kiss on her wild curls.

"Any idea what you want to do for dinner tonight?" the scientist asked, sitting across from Cecily. Carla's kitchen was small, maybe a little less lived-in than Cecily's, but the radio host loved it all the same. Carla's coffee pot, a relic from her days before Night Vale, only gurgled and made coffee, rather than sing classic rock songs and make coffee. That was certainly more relaxing than an off-key rendition of "Sympathy for the Devil." But today, not even Carla's calming kitchen could divest Cecily of the sense of doom weighing heavily upon her shoulders.

"I don't know," Cecily said weakly. "Whatever you want to do for dinner."

Carla rubbed Cecily's hand and took a bite of her toast. At that point, a young man with a shock of bright red hair shuffled into the kitchen. Cecily and the scientists were used to each other, and though they sometimes teased Cecily and Carla, it was all with kindness underlying it. This young scientist, Elliot, a grad student pursuing a degree in something to do with rocks, waved cheerfully at Cecily. She waved back, no cheer to be found, as he puttered around the kitchen and gathered Pop-Tarts and a banana for breakfast. He offered up another small wave before disappearing back into his room.

"I don't have much going on today," Carla went on, brushing her fingertips across Cecily's knuckles. She looked down and found her hand wrapped around her fork, skin pulled taut and yellowish over the bones. The metal edges bit into the flesh of her palm. She wasn't one of the many born without pain receptors, but there was a blessing tucked into the hard lines of the matter as Carla uncurled her hand and brushed gentle fingers over the red marks.

"What's going on, Cecily?"

Cecily, a radio host, paid to speak, made of stars and words, was mute. Her lips were stitched up with her fears. Carla stroked the sensitive skin of her palms and pressed her lips into a thin line of concern. Again, though, she did not push it.

"Let me know if there's any way for me to help," Carla said kindly, voice gone gentle and soft. Cecily choked back a sob because she didn't understand where the fear had come from, just that it was an incompleteness, a hollowness in her chest dusted over in horror.

"I will," she promised weakly. "Don't worry."

* * *

That evening, when she was no longer in possession of herself and still shaking as the last bits and pieces of her panic attack faded away, she tumbled into Carla's arms. There were a few other scientists in the living room, and they stared at Cecily with haggard expressions and ashen faces. They'd stared with _pity_ before leaving the room.

"I heard what happened," Carla said quietly after a moment, rubbing Cecily's back with long, slow strokes. "I'm so sorry. Was that why you were so worried this morning?"

"I don't know," Cecily whispered. Her voice was little more than a harsh rasp tearing across her throat, and she was full of hatred and fear. Her self had slipped through her fingers in the haze of terror and here she was, gasping into Carla's shoulder and dreading seeing them. Seeing her _owner_. There was toxicity in the idea, cruelty embedded in the sharpness of it. Here was Cecily Palmer a (mostly) sentient human being, bought and sold like a comic book, like a coffee-maker, like _nothing_.

Carla tugged Cecily toward the couch, curling their bodies together neatly and warmly, her lips and tongue and teeth shaping gentle susurrus sounds in the hopes of soothing the radio host. And though it wouldn't help in the long-term, it did help now, and Cecily lay with her head on Carla's chest, the scientist's heartbeat soft and sure and solid.

* * *

Their hair had gone grey, particularly Carla's. The few strands of silver that had twisted in her curls in her thirties had multiplied, leaving her hair totally grey. Cecily's hair had whitened and turned spiderweb soft, a delicate nimbus cloud haloing her head. She still made Night Vale's transition into night an easy one, and Carla still saved the town from such common menaces as ATMs seeking voting rights.

Cecily was her own person again, and she had long since given away a tiny portion of that incandescent self to Carla in exchange for a silver band on her ring finger and a small piece of Carla's metaphorical heart. They had brought up two children and felt incredible pride every time they brought home good grades or hand-carved rune stones.

When they were old and grey and soft, when they were in their mid-seventies, when it was a little harder to get around, the lay on their bed with the worn sage sheets. Their boy and girl had long since moved out and started families of their own. Now, they were lacing their fingers like bird bones together, rose gold light playing against their bodies.

"Do you ever miss it?" Cecily whispered in the post-dawn sunshine. Still, after forty years, she had doubts. They were quiet and soft and so cellophane thin that it took Carla forever to see them. But now, even though her eyesight was going, they were clear as day.

"There's nothing out there that could possibly compete with what I have here," she murmured, touching her lips to Cecily's knuckles. "Night Vale is home. Adam and Elody are home. _You_ are home, _mi querida_."

Cecily smiled like starshine. "You make the yawning inevitability of the void seem like a much better prospect."

Carla pressed a kiss to the end of her wife's nose.

"I love you too."


End file.
